Steemit and Meetup.com make a great combination. We can strengthen our community if we leverage Meetup.com. I realize that there are a lot of people new to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and although there are plenty of resources online and especially on Steemit, nothing beats face-to-face interaction to build relationships and learn from each other. As even more mainstream users get into Steemit there is going to be a great demand to understand how to maneuver around the crypto world, how to secure digital assets from scammers and hackers, how to exchange your digital assets with others and also just keep up with latest Steemit news. For example after @complexring's post about the SBD/Steem premium I realized that now was most likely a good opportunity to take SBD off the table at a 30 to 40% premium, but if you're new to crypto that's not an easy task. There are risks with exchanges and potential for mistakes or headaches. Having someone local for guidance definitely helps. There might be a need for some hand-holding as well. I've been around crypto for some time now, but I forget how challenging it is to do simple things. In-person meetings will definitely expedite the learning curve. There are so many aspects to Steemit and cryptocurrencies and this is only the tip of the iceberg right? The Steemit ecosystem and content is expanding at a rapid pace and there are so many different projects going on it's already getting hard to keep track of. If you're new to crypto it's probably an even bigger challenge.
Fostering Local Community
If we foster our local community we can help each other tremendously. We can also build up an ecosysem for local exchange of goods & services. We can set up peer-to-peer local SBD/Steem and digital asset exchanges. We can network for collaborations and business ventures. There are an abundance of benefits.
Future
Years down the road we may not need to use Meetup because we could easily post events on Steemit, but for now there is already an active user base there and using that platform is a marketing channel to draw existing users here to Steemit.
I searched Steemit and there is actually the first Steemit meetup in Seattle to be held July 23rd posted a few days ago. There was another request for one in NYC. I've reached out to 
